


A Thousand Words Too Many

by SadieYuki



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Tarsus IV, graphic descriptions of torture wounds of a minor, mention of after effects of starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-18 07:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8153605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadieYuki/pseuds/SadieYuki
Summary: Hikaru and Pavel prove that it's a terrible idea to handle classified documents when under the influence. What starts as a fun project to poke fun at the senior crew quickly devolves into a revealing breach of privacy, and the pair find themselves wondering if they'll ever be able to earn their captain's trust again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> From [fbexplorer](http://fbexplorer.tumblr.com/)'s prompt: _Chekov and/or Sulu find out about Tarsus IV, against Jim's wishes, how does he react?_

“Are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely. We found Mr. Spock’s in his full Starfleet file, did we not?”

“Yeah, but Spock’s file didn’t have a dozen ‘classified’ markers on it.”

“You are exaggerating, Hikaru, zere are only four markers on ze Keptin’s file.”

“We could get into a lot of trouble for hacking his file like this,” Hikaru mused, knocking back another gulp of Pavel’s favorite brand of scotch. “But to be fair, Kirk’s done his fair share of hacking for a good cause, and this certainly qualifies.”

“Zat’s ze spirit!” Pavel grinned, clinking his glass against Hikaru’s.

Hikaru had decided to undertake a small ‘crew morale’ project to present at the upcoming Annual _Enterprise_ Talent Show; Hikaru was claiming the project demonstrated his video editing talent, featuring Pavel’s investigative talents. The project was simply a compilation of images from the senior officers’ adolescence, including fun baby pictures, awkward elementary school yearbook photos, embarrassing ‘trading cards’ from children’s sports teams, and many more.

So far, the pair had found some amazing photos from the senior crew, including a picture of young Spock and his pet sehlat, a baseball trading card with a ten year old McCoy, a three year old Uhura in a sparkly tutu, and of course they had to throw in a couple pictures of themselves to round everything off.

They had found pictures for everyone. Everyone except the captain.

They’d searched every resource they could think of: a simple net search, the Riverside Public Schools database, Starfleet Academy records...they even searched Winona Kirk’s name and hadn’t found any photos of her son (or sons apparently, Pavel and Hikaru hadn’t known Kirk had a brother).

Of course, they’d had trouble locating pictures for Spock as well, until Pavel had the idea to crack open his Starfleet personnel file, which had information about an officer’s entire life and not just their Starfleet career. It made sense to try Kirk’s file when other efforts were for naught, but Kirk’s file had a very prominent obstacle.

There were four separate classified markers on Kirk’s file.

One of them was easy to guess; the most recent top secret marker was likely to hide Kirk’s brush with death and subsequent revival. There was a second marker on the same time frame, listed only as secret, which probably covered the entirety of the Khan incident.

A secret-level marker from a year before that was probably about Kirk’s encounter with Ambassador Spock.

The only marker left was the one they were stuck on. It was a top secret marker set completely over the years 2245-2247, from the ages of twelve to fourteen.

Hikaru had no idea what a pre-teen/teenager could be involved in that warranted a top secret classification from Starfleet, but it was the only section of Kirk’s childhood that had photo files attached to it, and it was their last chance to find picture of Kirk for the presentation.

In hindsight, Hikaru would realize it was a terrible idea to ingest alcohol prior to looking through someone’s personnel file. Especially one with classified markers on it. Maybe then they wouldn’t have decided to hack into a top-secret file with the sole intention of locating embarrassing childhood photos.

They weren’t at all prepared for what they found.

There were dozens of photos.

They weren’t all of Kirk, but they were all horrifying.

There were pictures of rotting crop fields, the remains of a large building that had been burned to the ground with distinct humanoid bones poking out of the debris, photos of people of all ages with mouth sores, unhealthy bald spots, missing teeth, jaundice, hyper and hypopigmentation, and many more physical signs of malnutrition.

When they got to the pictures of Kirk, Pavel immediately stood and ran for the bathroom. Hikaru could hear the sound of his retching as he stared at the photo, horrified yet fixated on the state of their young captain.

This photo showed a teenage Kirk lying on his stomach, face aimed at the camera as his head rested on too-thin arms. His normally vibrant blue eyes were cloudy and gray, completely unfocused, and his face showed the same severe signs of starvation as they had seen in the other pictures. But the most horrifying part of the picture was Kirk’s injuries. Hikaru had seen the scars on Kirk’s back when working out together in the gym, but he’d always assumed they came from a motorcycle accident or something, as Kirk had implied when questioned about them. But this...

His back was covered in open wounds, crosshatches of bleeding welts over a rainbow of bruising. There were patches of what looked like severe burns both on top of and under the lash marks. Someone had tortured him. A thirteen year old child. And it hadn’t been a quick experience.

Hikaru felt acid push insistently at the back of his throat, and he almost got up to join Pavel when the door to his quarters opened without warning. If there had been any blood left in his face, he would have paled.

Kirk stood in the open doorway, face hard and impassive as he locked eyes with Hikaru. He looked almost out of breath, like he had run here from wherever he’d been to get here. How did he find out so fast? Or had they been so lost in their horror that they hadn’t realized how much time had passed?

“Lieutenant Sulu,” Kirk began, his voice filled with ice. Hikaru had heard the tone aimed at enemies before and had always been thankful that it hadn’t been directed at him. He’d give anything for that to still be the case. He instinctively shot to his feet. “Would you like to explain why you illegally accessed classified documents from Ensign Chekov’s PADD?”

_He must have traced the location of the PADD. Oh God, does he think I stole Pavel’s PADD to do this?_

“Sir, it’s not like that—”

“Then what is it like, Mr. Sulu? Are you telling me you _didn’t_ steal the property of another Starfleet officer in order to commit an illegal—”

“Keptin!” Pavel’s startled voice came from the bathroom, having just noticed their guest.

Hikaru witnessed Kirk’s shoulders drop a bit, almost in relief, but he still held his stiff composure. “Ensign Chekov, you accessed the files then?”

“Uh...” Pavel paused, throwing a panicked look at Hikaru. They knew they had been breaking regulations to do this, but they never really considered the possibility of facing the drastic consequences associated with it. Well, they certainly were now.

“It was both of us, Sir,” Hikaru said, attempting to stand at attention, but he felt unsteady on his feet, both from the alcohol and the weight of what they’d uncovered.

Kirk wrinkled his nose, looking briefly around the room. “Have you both been drinking?” he asked, voice sounding exasperated now. Hikaru wondered if that was a good sign.

“Uh, yes sir, we’re both off duty, so—”

 _“Jesus Christ,”_ Kirk muttered, rubbing his forehead. “Is this the type of behavior I can expect from you two when you’re inebriated? Because what you two did is punishable by an dishonorable discharge and a ten year sentence in a penal colony, did you know that? I doubt you would’ve done this sober.”

Hikaru paled. _Ten years?_

“Yes, ten years.” Oops, must’ve spoken out loud. “I’m going to give you one chance to explain why you decided to break open a top secret file encryption on my personal file, and it better be a good one.”

Hikaru had never been so mortified in his life. They probably had the _worst_ possible excuse in history.

“We were looking for childhood photos of you to include in our talent show presentation,” Pavel supplied. Hikaru needed all of his willpower to suppress a groan.

Kirk blinked at him. “What?”

 _Might as well go all in._ “We’ve been collecting embarrassing photos of the senior crew to show everyone, and we found something for everyone except you. We found Spock’s photo in his personal file so we thought looking at yours would give us something,” Hikaru explained. Kirk didn’t say anything, just continued to stare impassively, so Hikaru continued. “We didn’t think it would be that bad, we knew what the other markers on your file were for so we thought it would just be something like that, not...not...”

“Not the biggest black mark on Federation history?” Kirk supplied sardonically. Hikaru shrugged helplessly. What else was there to say? They’d violated Kirk’s privacy for one of the craziest reasons in the books, and it had been a massive invasion into his personal life. They deserved everything that was coming to them—

Kirk sighed heavily, wiping a hand down his face. “Sit down, guys.”

Hikaru exchanged a glance with Pavel before the pair took their seats, Hikaru taking the opportunity to switch off the offending PADD. Kirk took a seat on Hikaru’s desk, and Hikaru almost offered to switch, but decided against it. Kirk’s looming figure seemed much more appropriate given the situation.

“I assume you know where the pictures came from,” Kirk started. Hikaru nodded wordlessly, and he noted out of the corner of his eye that Pavel looked a bit green again at the reminder. “There’s a—” Kirk paused, then gave a frustrated huff. “Shit, pour me a glass of whatever that is, I can’t do this sober.”

Pavel hurried to pour a glass and pass it to the captain, who then proceeded to down half of it in one swallow. Hikaru winced, both at the loss of good alcohol and the perceived burn down his throat.

Kirk was silent for a moment and took a much smaller sip before sighing. The look he gave them was the most exhausted expression Hikaru had ever seen on his face. “There’s a reason Tarsus IV has a top secret encryption on my file,” he started. “I doubt you read much into it if you were just looking for photos, but those might’ve been worse, to be honest.”

“Da,” Pavel said softly. “We are sorry, Keptin, we didn’t know—”

Kirk stopped him with a single raised hand. “The event itself isn’t classified, the fallout was widely publicized as I’m sure you two know. My file on the event is classified because I’m a protected witness. They had to wipe the survivor records of any trace of me and the other witnesses, so anything in my file that related to Tarsus IV was encrypted. It’s for my protection as well as those of the other eight.”

It was easy math, and Hikaru felt his mouth go dry at Kirk’s words. He understood right away what Kirk was saying: he was one of the Tarsus Nine, the only people who had witnessed Kodos give the execution order and survived said order. And Hikaru remembered the stories from the Academy, the classes they had where the learned of the fate of the few Massacre survivors. Nine had made it off planet, but others had survived the initial massacre of colonists. Some of them had been captured and tortured, and only one had survived. If the picture in Kirk’s file meant anything, Hikaru now knew who that one was.

“Gentlemen, your punishment is going to be heavily dependent on your answer to my next question,” Kirk said, and Hikaru unconsciously straightened in his seat. “Did you read the names of any of the other protected witnesses?”

Hikaru thought to when they had opened the file, but as Kirk had mentioned, with their primary goal being the photos they hadn’t bothered to read any of the associated text. And they hadn’t thought to read any of the captions—

“No, Sir,” Hikaru answered honestly. Pavel answered the same next to him.

Kirk clearly believed them as he relaxed his posture, letting out what sounded like a relieved sigh. “You’ll both be given an informal reprimand, as well as Restriction to last a month. And you’ll be reporting to Lieutenant Commander Braure for extra duty shift for a month, following your primary shift. Understood?”

“Aye, Sir,” they chorused. It was a big punishment for sure, but Hikaru knew when to count his blessings. It could have been significantly worse.

“Maybe next time just ask me for photos?” Kirk added, a small quirk gracing his lips.

“We shall keep zat in mind, Sir,” Pavel said, guilt lacing his speech.

“Good,” Kirk nodded. He turned to leave, but paused before opening the door. “I trust I don’t need to say that that information remains top secret, but—”

“Our lips are sealed,” Hikaru said promptly.

As Kirk left the room without another word, Hikaru found himself wondering if they’d irreparably damaged their relationship with the captain. But later that day, when he received a picture of a ten year old Kirk, sitting behind the wheel of a vintage corvette with over-sized sunglasses, Hikaru knew they’d been forgiven.


End file.
